Review: XXY (3/5); The Secert (3/5)

XXY
(Lucia Puenzo):
Ines Efron, Martin Piroyanski, Ricardo Darin, German Palacios, Valeria Bertuchelli.
Running time: 86 minutes.

This sensitive, challenging Argentine drama is the story of Alex (Ines Efron), an hermaphrodite in the throes of puberty and a tough decision about her gender identity. Her mother Suli (Valeria Bertuchelli) arranges for an old friend with her surgeon husband to visit – a prelude to decisive surgery. But Alex is a fiery tomboy with a wind-tousled mop of hair. The surgeon’s son, Alvaro, quiet but inquisitive, might have feelings for her. He finds tablets in the bathroom. “What’s this?” he says. “Corticoid. So I don’t grow a beard.” They have a sexual encounter, a moment of terrible confusion. He thinks he’s making out with a girl, and to a degree he is; then Alex slips more than a hand between his legs. They are witnessed in the act by Alex’s dad (Ricardo Darin). How’s that for complicated? This is handled in a frank and delicate manner written with psychological acuity. Screenwriter and first-time director Lucia Puenzo is keen to empathise and expose prejudice. She gives life to the story with an easy naturalism, nestling it into a small fishing village.

The Secret
(Claude Miller):
Cécile De France, Patrick Bruel, Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu, Mathieu Amalric.
Running time: 105 minutes.

French director Claude Miller noses into more serious dramatic terrain after last year’s fromage The Perfect Friend. This is an elegantly framed coming-of-age story that dovetails into a WWII drama about the Holocaust. It derives its emotional punch more from the weight of history than the material. Parisian boy Francois (with black and white flash-forwards to the present starring Mathieu Amalric) wonders why his gymnast father Maxime (Patrick Bruel) disapproves of him to the point of disdain. A box in the attic opens a can of worms and Francois’s nanny Louise (Julie Depardiu) reveals what happened to his parents before he was born. It is based on the true-story novel by Phillipe Grimbert, and the film awkwardly splits the material in two: the point-of-view of Francois dissolves to war-time Paris before he was born, when the Nazis were closing ranks on France’s Jews. Miller mingles grief with desire to unsatisfactory effect but it is still engaging: Ludivine Sagnier (Swimming Pool) completely outclasses the ubiquitous and dull Céline De France.